The story began in 2001, in Zagreb Croatia, when Slaven Nikolic (guitar), Davor Vlahov (vocal/guitar) and Darko Demsic-Rudi (bass), together with Vedran Hadziselimovic (drums) formed heavy/progressive band R2 (named after famous Star Wars character R2-D2). They recorded a 5track demo named ?Given Away?, (review of that demo can be found on web page: www.cmar-net.org ). Soon after that they stopped playing together.

In autumn of year 2002, together with their new drummer Neven Nikolic they formed band Fragment. They continued to work on their new material (some songs from R2 stage were also included in their repertoire), but because of lack of keyboardist, were unable for playing live. That changed in the very end of same year when Vedran Hrgetic joined them as keyboardist and completed Fragment?s line-up. At that point, they were searching for their own music style and combined various music elements and influences. They had several concerts during 2003. in and around Zagreb.

In 2004. They finished material for their very first album called ?The Masquerade?. During this period they developed their own style that can be described as heavy metal empowered with rhythmical riffs and periodic progressive influence. Main influences on the band were made by: Masterplan, Helloween, Iron Maiden, Dark Tranquillity and progressive bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X, Ark?

Fragment entered the Monitor Audio Studio; Zagreb, in August of 2004. The work on album lengthened out to more than 8 months, mostly because of the lack of money. It is important to say that the whole project was self-financed and self-produced. The album was finaly finished and Fragment started searching for the metal label to release it.

After some unsucessful contacting metal labels, primarily in Europe, the band found a record publisher in it?s home city, Zagreb, Croatia, by the name of Euroton records (Capitol festival). In the meanwhile, Fragment had a couple of concerts in nearby towns and recorded their first video for the song ?A World Inside? (recorded and produced by Ljubo Zdjelarevic) found on the album, which ended up being nominated in category ?music video of the year? on Croatian film festival ?Dani hrvatskog filma?!

At the beggining of autumn of 2006, due to the personal reasons, Slaven Nikolic has left the band. We would like to express our gratitude for everything he has done for this band, musicaly and otherwise, through this. In spite of leaving Fragment he deserves acknowledgement for doing his part of the job well. We apreciate it!

At the very closure of the same year, when everybody in the band were pretty much convinced they where to enter new year as a quartet a new singer aplied for the job. Her name is Kristina Jagic and her singing as a sopran voice alongside Davor?s pushed Fragment into a new era. Be sure to check out the new album by the end of the year (hopefuly)!

Currently, the band is engaged in promoting their first released album and for that reason and also for a chance to play new material which they eagerly want to present to broader audience is searching for live performance opportunities.

Swiss

Fragment was formed in Geneva Switzerland at the beginning of 1995. The trio started playing live shows in basements, underground clubs? throughout their own country, while focusing all their energy and time into writing and rehearsing. The members started to progress and work with varied musical textures, and then grew in a sound that is an unprecedent combination of powerful metal and US hardcore influences. Fragment performs dark grooves and an unconventional tortured metal. Lyric wise, they decided to compose in their mother tongue (French), in which they felt more comfortable with to express themselves.

Shortly having released a first 7??, their debut E.P. ?Tronc? was recorded in 1996 with Geneva?s producer David Weber (Young Gods, Treponem Pal, Lofofora, Tantrum) in ?Studio des Forces Motrices? and released in March 1997 on Snuff Records. This record displayed an imaginative, colourful and yet complex style of metal identified to Fragment nowadays. Very favourably received by the French and German presses (Rage, Rocksound, Metalhammer Germany) it marked the band?s first major step towards shedding their influences, heading into a specific, personalized style, taking them to another stage.

1997 brought a spurt of inspiration which saw the band write their first full-length. Fragment began experimenting with an incorporating advanced style of rythmic patterns with more and more worrying atmospheres, discordant and surgical riffing, controlled dissonance and own song structures into their intense. The texts are introspective, mostly expressed bad feelings by which each of us may be prompted. Beginning December, Fragment entered the?Dug-Out Productions Studios? in Uppsala Sweden, with acclaimed engineer/producer Daniel Bergstrand who has come to be known for working with bands like Strapping Young Lad, Meshuggah, Stuck Mojo, Misery Loves Co. and more.

Fragment was put into his own musical realm, with personal identity soundscape. The result of the band?s labor is ?Flux?, an exhausting exercise in creativity and brutality.

The band signed and released this album with ?Headstrong Records? in October 1998. The ?Flux? album found distribution in Spain, France, Benelux, Austria, Switzerland and the U.S. on Relapse Catalog, countries in which the band contributed to several compilations.

The year after, a short European tour with Pro-Pain, and opening for Soulfly in Switzerland for the promotion of the ?Flux? L.P., before hitting the road for their second tour in April-May 2000, bringing their absolutely ferocious live assault as the opening act for the Swedish band Meshuggah throughout France and Switzerland. The famous tour show in Geneva, with Pantera, Powerman 5000, Satyricon and Meshuggah, was definitely one of the high-lights of the band so far. Last year tour with Meshuggah maintained Fragment?s ability to expand their musical borders and constantly challenge their listeners.

2001 signalled a major turning point for the trio as they added a new vocalist to improve their raging aggression and give more direct approach for their new songs. The vocals are more intense than ever before, absorbing energy and spitting back into the listener?s face. From now on the lyrics will be in english.

In fact, the new four songs recorded and mixed early January 2002 by Fredrik Thordendal in Stockholm, Sweden, displayed the expected Fragment characteristics, however the songs began to get longer and more expressive, focusing on efficiency and aggressivity, while retaining the accurate sense of worrying sonorities that have graced the band?s past material.

While composing new material, they have settled in producing the next record with Jocke Skog from Clawfinger & Fredrik Thordendal, Meshuggah?s lead guitarist, in Stockholm Sweden, to work for the making of Fragment?s personality, which will result like an ever-expanding organic machine fuelled by an unquenchable thirst for evolution, thus signalling a new direction in the Fragment?s sound.

Exploring new ways of expression and density for Fragment, the latter creates music that is uncompromising, but becoming more melodic, still with an underlying dark and tortured attitude, with more impact and a spine shivering effect, taking their art to a new level of extremity.

For the moment, our ex-label ?Headstrong Records? having changed their activities and artistic direction, the band is in the search and the need of joining forces with a new label.

British

Tim Alexander, Dave Marriner and Jono Fosh met at school in Essex, England, where they formed Fragment with various friends. After going through a number of line-ups, the band stabilised in the form of a trio, playing concerts in their local area and in London.

Jono, who was studying Dutch at London University, visited the Netherlands in the course of his studies, and saw potential there to make a living out of the music. Having convinced Dave and Tim of this, the group set off for Holland and Belgium, and ended up on the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam, where they gradually made a name for themselves and started wheeling in concert bookings.

At one point, they were sometimes playing to six thousand people in a week, which, they realized, was enough to fill up the Ahoy? in Rotterdam. After two sold-out concerts in Ahoy?, they have now returned to playing festivals and packed houses all over the Netherlands. In 2003, they released their third full-length album ?Yeah Yeah Yeah?, after ?Insufferable? and ?The Dream Orchard?.

To this day, Fragment is still based in the Netherlands.

United States

Fragment (aka Outright, aka Fragment Metal) was formed under the name Outright in Upton, Massachusetts in the spring of 1996 by Steve Provost (vocals), Jason Johnson (guitar), Jay Fox (guitar), Al Bigelow (drums) and Mark Wood (bass). The band started playing local shows after 3 weeks. Their early sound was in the vein of hardcore giants Strife and Earth Crisis, but later evolved into the metalcore sound of local favorites such as Overcast. They were often associated with the straightedge music scene (all of the members were at that time), but they didn?t bill themselves as such. After a few months they decided to change their name to Fragment after finding another hardcore band named Outright. (Ironically, there are more bands named Fragment then Outright.)

Their first published work was a 4-song demo tape that they distributed for free. It was ?published? by a made-up record label named Evil Bloom Records, a tongue-in-cheek reference to a friend of the band. They also published a track on a 7? record titled Nothing Left To Chance for the label Home Fire Records.

In 1997 there was a schism in the band over personal issues and the band was declared as dead. However, Provost and Johnson decided to carry on the project and recruited Chris Bloom (bass) and Jeff Wheeler (drums). (The remaining members would go on to form several other successful projects, most notably Fortydaysrain.) The new lineup quickly dropped most of the original material and started working on new songs with a more technical metal sound. They later recruited Jim Felix as a second guitarist, and began making plans to record a full-length CD. That CD, Angels Never Came, was released in 1998 on Pindrop Records. The new lineup continued to play the Worcester, Boston and Providence areas regularly with bands such as Blood Has Been Shed, The Year of Our Lord, Diecast, Bane, Barrit, etc. They also went on several East-coast tours. In 2000, they went back into the studio to record their second and final album, Answers, which was originally published by Pindrop Records but later re-published by Voice of Life Records in Germany.

In the years following the release of their first CD, the line up went through several more changes. Jim Felix, Jay Johnson and Chris Bloom all left the band at one time or another to pursue other interests, though Jim and Jay would return before the band finally broke up. Chris Bloom was replaced by Chris Hill. Other members included Allan Arakelian and Jeff Wiersma, and some shorter-lived members.

The band?s last climax came in the form of a 1-month European tour in early 2001 in support of the Voice of Life deal. They broke-up for good a few months after returning home.